Post-Graduate Education

I just signed up for an online course called "Technology in Agriculture" for the summer.

Real life larnin here I come.

This morning I opened the chicken coop to say good morning and they were in such good spirits! They practically leaped out to greet me. Hello chickchicks! They ran around the yard while I said good morning to The Baron who will decidedly be an outdoor rabbit. The house is smelling too much as it is with the two girl rabbits inside. The Baron was very happy this morning too. He hopped around his pen in circles. Hello Baron! Then, Dagny saw Frank, the squirrel. She chased him up the tree and he yelled at her for a while. Frank and I had a talk about the chickens which are deeply unsettling to Frank the squirrel. He clucked about them at me for a while and then I left some nuts out for him. Willow and Madam Zozimoff were a little peeved because I left the light in the back room on all night but I turned it off so maybe they could get a little nap in this morning.

I love animals!

Picture Post

Speaking of those Joyous Animals, here they are:

The Animals

As of today I have three rabbits, two chickens, and a dog.
"How do you have time to take care of them all?" Someone asked me.
I found the question perplexing. Like how do you have time to brush your teeth or water your plants? It's not a matter of time or dedication.

Today was one of the happiest days in my life.
I woke up and I could tell it was going to be a very warm day. I did my little rounds, checking on the rabbits and chickens, filling their water and food dishes. I made Dagny watch over the chickens while I got ready and did some homework.

It's not even as though I had to wake up super early. I woke up around 8 or 9 but the thing is I love waking up early. I love taking care of animals. I love having a reason to take care of them! I know this is what I not want, but NEED to do with my life and I'm happy to get started.

Our Two Hens

PCPeep found her second worm today. I've never seen a chicken display such joy. I am worried because PCPeep is almost twice as large as Sean Hennity but they both seem very healthy. I harvested my new angora, Madam Zozimoff's hair for the first time today. She didn't like it too much but I think we'll get into a better groove once we get to know each other better and exactly what means "ow" and what means "I'm bored." I am probably too rough with her. It's just hard because she is so silent. Her protests are sometimes over trifles but they would be similar if they were for death! I must learn to read the animals better. I wish we had a camera to record these wonderful creatures. Soon there will be pictures.

On Eating Meat

I've been conscientious about my meat consumption for about 4 years now. For two years I rarely ate meat then for the next two I only ate fish. Recently, I gave up fish as well. I've been pondering the viability and ethical nature of raising animals for consumption. I am human, I do believe meat is delicious. My reluctance to consume meat comes from a few different places:
1. Environmental Factors
2. Animal Ethics/ Valuing lives (looking into my dog's eyes and hating humans = a shifting idea of equality)
3. Health (antibiotics in meat, fat consumption, etc)

I could go into all of these things but I won't. I assume any reader sympathetic with this blog should be intelligent enough to understand someone's reasons for not eating meat in an industrial setting.

And so if I can control most of these factors- growing my meat and loving it before consuming it- could I eat meat?
Could I eat rabbits I grew in a cage? Could I break a turkey's neck for a delicious turkey and avocado sandwich? For a couple weeks I thought I could. But we just added a new rabbit. And we have two chickens and I love those little fuckers. And they all have the most hilarious personalities. Could I take a life for a meal?

I don't think so. I really don't think I could feel any more justified doing that than I could by taking a human life. It's more socially acceptable, obviously, to take a non-human animal's life for consumption. I don't know!

Maybe I'll remain a vegetarian for life. Would that be so bad?

I have a pretty prestigious internship doing exactly what my college education has prepared me to do. It is something I worked hard to obtain and something I am very close to losing because of my brain.
Panic attacks, agoraphobia, anxiety, what ever you want to call it hits me before I even wake up on Tuesdays when I am scheduled to go in. It starts with a sort of sleep paralysis. The alarm goes off and I fall back asleep- frozen in fear. I dare not move a single muscle until the alarm goes off again. When I finally do wake up I am wide eyed. I cannot breathe. I cannot move. I berate myself, encourage myself, distract myself but nothing works. It's a sort of complicated ritual actually. If I see the clock change from the time I am supposed to be getting ready to the time I am supposed to leave to the time I am supposed to have arrived I feel worse. Usually I cannot see the time change because it is so horrible. Often I sleep through it. Today was so bad I nearly threw up on myself, afraid I wouldn't be able to even move enough to not throw up in my bed.
I cannot get out of bed. I cannot leave my house. If someone held my hand and led me outside I think most days that would work. Today I would have fought someone if they had tried to make me. I probably would have cried and punched and threw up. That didn't happen but it sort of did in my brain. I do not want to feel like a tantruming child. I do not want to feel like I do not deserve the things I have worked so hard for.

In bed today, while I was fighting this horrible battle with myself, I found myself thinking about my inadequacies. If I live on a farm and have animals depending on me for their food and lives would I have too much anxiety to tend to them? Would I be unable to rise to water the fields? I know I could. I don't have the answer for why. But maybe when my land is more than a plot on a concrete block, agoraphobia won't kick in until I get to the roads that surround it.
I don't want to throw up right outside my front door anymore. I don't want to lose money, respect, and maybe even jobs just because my own brain stops me. I don't want to keep taking these medications that don't work.

I'm stuck. I need out of this life with these strange expectations to wear high heels and have a powdered face and turn in crisp sheets of white paper in time for arbitrary deadlines. I have run away to other countries, into boys arms, and into my dreams where no one can criticize me and none of those things have worked. And as much emphasis as I put on escaping and how much I know that doesn't actually work I know a more natural lifestyle will. It will make me feel like living again and if it doesn't there is no hope.